BALI NINE

Allergic teen dies after eating cookie

ninemsn staff

A US teenager with severe nut allergies has died in hospital after eating a cookie that his friend innocently gave him containing peanut oil.

University student Cameron Fitzpatrick, 19, was at home in Plymouth, Massachusetts for spring break on Friday when he ate the biscuit that sent him into anaphylactic shock and killed him, the Plymouth Patch reports.

The 19-year-old was out driving with a friend, who bought some cookies and offered him one, saying he did not detect any traces of peanuts.

Back at home Mr Fitzpatrick took a chance on the cookie but probably regretted it moments later as he doubled over in pain and screamed, "I can't breathe".

His mother Robin frantically searched through her son's bags to find his Epi-Pen, a medical device used to deliver a dose of epinephrine to treat the onset of anaphylactic shock.

When she could not locate it she discovered an old epinephrine auto-injector she kept at home but it had expired two months earlier and an emergency operator told her not to use it.

"I watched my son suffer awful, awful, struggling to breathe and begging for help," she said.

A firefighter eventually used his own Epi-Pen on the teen but it seemed to have little effect as up to 15 emergency service workers performed CPR on the student in futile efforts to revive him.

A doctor later told Ms Fitzpatrick that she should have used the expired Epi-Pen on her son, although it may not have worked.